For years, the Apple Watch‘s biggest missing feature was when it itself went missing. If you have an iPhone, you know one of the most valuable features of having an Apple Watch as well is pinging your iPhone from your wrist if you can’t find your phone. The tracking device you didn’t know you needed was on your wrist. But what about the other way around? It took a while, but Apple finally changed up its thinking and you can find the last known location of your device. If you’ve ever used Find My Phone before, you should be able to utilize the same technology for your Apple Watch. Here’s how.
Keep track of your Apple Watch
Previously, with the first-gen Watch, once it was lost or stolen, the Watch was not paired with its iPhone anymore. That means it couldn’t connect to anything. It didn’t have a built-in GPS chip that could help Apple enable the feature, so you wouldn’t see it on a map via iCloud. But things are different now.
That has changed in recent years, as you’re now able to use your Apple Watch with GPS or GPS+Cellular, allowing you to use your watch even if you don’t have your phone with you.
Here’s how you’re able to find your Apple Watch using your iPhone
You first need to set up Find My Phone, which you find in Settings.
- Go to Settings and tap your name at the top
- Near the bottom is Find My
- Turn on Find My Phone, Find My network, and Send Last Location
By doing that, it covers your Apple Watch as well. Now to set up your Apple Watch you need to
- Go to Find My app
- Hit Devices on the bottom
- You’ll see the connected devices you have and it’ll show you a map of where they were seen last
Ping your Apple Watch
As long as your Apple Watch has some battery power left, you can make it play a sound in order to better track it down. If you see it’s at home and you just can’t seem to find it, you can click on Play Sound when you click into the Apple Watch on Find My and it’ll ping your watch. This makes it start to play a sound (similar to the sound your iPhone makes when you ping it from your Apple Watch). That should help you find it if you’re near it.
For those who lost their iPhone too, you can log into iCloud.com and do this all through that as well. You’ll also be able to put it into Lost Mode, which will show people who pick up your Apple Watch how to contact you (and you can put in a phone number or email address for that). If worst comes to worst, you click Erase Apple Watch to protect your data if you think it’s in the wrong hands.
Other ways to protect your Apple Watch
The Watch, on top of costing hundreds of dollars depending on the chosen model, can also contain precious information including credit cards used for Apple Pay.
Head to iCloud.com and remove your cards associated with Apple Pay. Naturally, you can take precautions to at least prevent sensitive data loss on the Watch by setting up a passcode for it. To do so, simply head to the My Watch app on the iPhone. Visit the Passcode section and then Turn Passcode On, if you haven’t enabled it in the first place when setting up the watch.
To make the security feature less annoying during everyday use, also enable Unlock with iPhone option, which will keep your Watch unlocked for as long as you’re wearing it. As soon as the watch is removed from your wrist, like in a scenario in which someone steals it, the Watch locks until you enter the correct four-digit PIN.
You can also choose to use an Apple Watch band or a protective case to keep your timepiece from breaking. It’s so useful and important in your everyday life. It’s time to think about your data and your Watch.
More Apple Watch news: For the latest news on the Apple Watch Series 8, click here.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on April 28, 2015 and has been updated since then.
